Let’s celebrate the
technology
that featured sound quality
that was exceeded only by its
mechanical perfection

1Cassettes used
tape. Everyone (yes,
everyone) knows that
suspending a bunch of
teeny-tiny little magnets
in plastic, blasting them
with supersonic energy,
then making them line
up using a method that
resembles herding
drunken and disorderly
cats is the surest way
possible to create a
peachy-keen sound.

2Cassettes were
designed for
low-fi dictation
applications, not
music. Being perversely
contrary is in a musician’s
DNA. So of course, upon
first seeing the cassette,
musicians realized
immediately that this
was clearly destined to be
the playback medium of
the future. Even better,
cassettes distorted like
crazy!

3The format was
ahead of its time. The
widespread adoption
of low-bit-rate MP3
formats, played through
earbuds from China,
proved that what people
really wanted was
not incremental, but
detrimental, changes
in sound quality. The
cassette delivered on
that promise long before
digital technology figured
out how to take truly
bad sound to a hitherto-uncharted
level of
wretchedness.

4Cassettes had little
reels that rotated.
Back in the ’60s, if
people had communed
sufficiently with a midaltering
substance, they
could be amused for
hours watching the little
reels go around—even
if the music wasn’t any
good. Decades later,
music videos would
exploit this very same
principle by making
elaborate videos for
forgettable music.

5They made
spectacular road
kill. When people got
frustrated with cassettes
jamming in their car
stereo and threw them
out the window, the
tape would unravel like
some strange kind of
post-industrial intestine,
literally spilling its guts
all over the interstate.
Can a CD do that? A
download? Vinyl? No!
Need I say more?